Thursday, January 14, 2010

Robin Dunne has gone toe-to-toe with witches, vampires and time-traveling serial killers in his role as forensic shrink Will Zimmerman on Sanctuary. But in the show’s January 15 season finale he will face his greatest challenge ever—dancing Bollywood style! The two-hour episode finds docile abnormals suddenly becoming violent all over the world. Will goes to Mumbai to get answers and is bitten by an abnormal spider which—long story short—may lead to global disaster. The spider’s venom has Will breaking into intense fever and spasms, speaking extensive Hindi and hallucinating an entire Bollywood musical number featuring him and 15 back up dancers.

“It was totally insane,” Dunne says. “I’m not a dancer at all—in fact, I can only do a two-step if I bite my lip long enough—so I was absolutely terrified! The whole thing was so crazy that at first I thought it was a prank. We’re always playing practical jokes on each other at the set and when I read the script I thought that’s what it was. I was really impressed at the lengths [exec producers] Martin Wood and Damian Kindler had gone to fool me—writing an entire fake story! But, to my horror, it turned out to be the real deal...”

...“Kali,” the two-part season finale of Sanctuary airs Friday, January 15, 9/8c, Syfy.

Emilie Ullerup talks to us about Sanctuary, surgery, and her plans for 2010

by Ruby T.

You know her as Helen Magnus’s tough, blond, gun-wielding daughter Ashley, but did you know she’s equally tough in real life? It takes a resilient spirit to deal with leaving a show and recovering from major surgery (tailbone-removing, tumor-wrapped-around-the-spine major surgery), but Emilie Ullerup has done that and is already making plans for a breakout 2010

A brief excerpt:

Last year, before shooting began for Sanctuary’s second season, Emilie was called into a meeting with the show’s executive producers. That meeting lasted an hour and a half. Ashley Magnus had been written out of the show, but the producers told Emilie that she would go out with a bang. The phenomenal two-episode arc they promised her became “End of Nights” parts 1 and 2.

When I ask Emilie what was behind the decision to kill off her character, she says she’s still not sure. “It was a network decision. And, to be honest with you, I don’t quite know why. I get a sense that the network felt that Ashley was not very liked and not one of the favorite characters.” The network had determined from audience research that Emilie’s character was not popular — but we may never know if this was at the heart of the decision to kill Ashley Magnus just two episodes into the show’s sophomore season.

It's hard to believe we're at the end of Sanctuary's second season already. But at least the season is ending with what creator Damian Kindler believes are "two of the most original episodes Sanctuary has ever done." In "Kali, Parts 1 and 2," when all the abnormals in the world begin to behave irrationally, it leads to an ancient abnormal who could destroy billions of lives if left unchecked. The episodes are "completely outside the box," said Kindler. "You will see monster and creature design on a scale we've never attempted before. 'Kali, Parts 1 and 2' are really about a global threat, and we take the audience places they've never been, and we show footage we shot in Tokyo when we were there. And then we take you to our version of Bombay, the ocean depths, the middle of the Indian Ocean. In part two there is, believe it or not, an amazing Bollywood dance by Will Zimmerman." Beyond the dancing Zimmerman, Syfy announced it's picked up Sanctuary for a third season.